A Thirst for Hunting

My brother had a good idea. Instead of racing to Montana for the elk hunt and arriving tired and out of shape, we should stop midway in South Dakota's Black Hills to hunt ruffed grouse while climbing Harney Peak, highest point east of the Rockies. Great way to acclimate. Darn near killed me.

The day started out well, with crisp temperatures and yellow aspens, but before we reached the summit I had a headache and was about to puke. At a piddling 7,200 feet, altitude sickness was unlikely. Perhaps I was getting a 24-hour bug. The next morning I was fine.

Over the years I often got that weird 24-hour flu when hunting. Chalked it off to bad luck or a weak constitution and pushed through it. I should have guzzled my way out of it. I was dehydrated, plain and simple.

Everybody knows you can live for weeks without food, only minutes without oxygen and about three days without water. What few realize is that a shortage of water can make you sick or compromise your efficiency. Water is your body's lubrication system, and it's necessary for cell building, oxygen delivery and waste removal. Running a body low on it is like running your truck low on oil. Only worse.

Roughly half your body weight is water. It makes your blood flow; moistens your eyes, nose and mouth; lubricates your joints; flushes out your kidneys; carries electrolytes to your muscles; metabolizes fats, lactic acid, uric acid and other body wastes; and cools your brain. It even keeps you upright and prevents back pain. Two-thirds of your upper body weight is supported by the water in the muscles, bones and discs of your spinal column. Dry them out and you're in pain.

You can't even shoot well when dehydrated. Lose as little as two percent of total body weight to dehydration and you lose 20 percent of your skills at tracking flying birds. (There's a new alibi!)

But shooting behind grouse is the least of your worries. Insufficient water for cooling (sweat evaporation) raises body temperature to dangerous levels and can cause fatal heat stroke. Remember Minnesota Vikings' star Korey Stringer? He collapsed in training and died with an internal body temperature of 108.8 degrees.

Of course, we aren't doing wind sprints and pumping serious iron out in the woods. We're just hiking, glassing, maybe indulging in a bit of strenuous climbing. Right?

Alan Sands and I did a wee bit of climbing in the Owyhee desert during a sheep hunt. We crossed a deep river gorge, got pinned down by some rams in the open under the hot sun, drank all our water, then hiked another six miles and crossed the gorge again before shooting a ram, butchering it and hauling it out at dusk.

I literally wobbled back to the truck, head about to explode, stomach about to turn inside out. And then I had to sip water I wanted to guzzle; otherwise I'd just puke it up. It took hours to recover.

A better idea is to not dehydrate in the first place. How much water do you need? Around two quarts, maybe 2 1/2. That's a minimum of 64 fluid ounces or a half gallon just for everyday activity. That's a lot of water, but the average human body loses that much plus 32 ounces more on an average day. Add exercise and you're courting trouble.